Ashley opens 900th HomeStore

The store in Ahuriri Napier is Ashley’s 900th. Four other HomeStores opened on the same day in Palmerston North, Paraparaumu, Lower Hutt and Hamilton. The five towns are all on New Zealand’s North Island between the larger cities of Wellington and Auckland.

Tom McKimm, managing director of Big Save Furniture, the largest furniture retailer in New Zealand, will own and operate all five of the New Zealand HomeStore locations.

The milestone is the second achieved by Ashley in 2018. It began the year with fewer than 800 locations.

“In less than a year, Ashley has celebrated multiple milestones with our 800th HomeStore opening in Mexico and our 900th HomeStore opening in New Zealand,” Todd Wanek, president and CEO of Ashley Furniture Industries Inc., said in a news release. “Our commitment is to deliver the best home furnishing selections and service to our customers. Each store that we open internationally better positions us to hold to that commitment.”

Ashley now counts 310 international HomeStores in 54 countries. Other recent openings have been in Vietnam and Thailand. Ashley also has opened a 400,000-square-foot consolidation warehouse in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to provide faster response times for customer orders.

“It’s been truly amazing to see the Ashley HomeStore growth since our first store opening in 1997,” Wanek added. That first store was in Anchorage, Alaska.

“I look forward to the perseverance of the company, and were main committed to continually improve and provide the best service to our customers around the globe,” Wanek said.